Dear Tamar,

Many thanks for your positive response, much appreciated. We would be happy to support the MoH, both with procurement and infrastructure related activities. We are standing by to hear further from you and Maya.

Very best wishes,

Mikkel

Dear Mikkel

Many thanks for your e-mail and willingness to support us with COVID 19 response. Much appreciated! PPE related needs are most urgent. I am cc-in  Maya Nikoleishvili to follow up on this part.

I will discuss the possibility of mobilizing engineering assessment and will get back to you soon.

პატივისცემით,

თამარ გაბუნია

მინისტრის მოადგილე

Sincerely,

Tamar Gabunia, MD, MPH

Deputy Minister

Dear Mrs Gabunia,

I trust you are well. Allow me to express my appreciation of the impressive efforts the Government of Georgia is making to confront the COVID challenge.

I spoke to the Un Resident Coordinator and WHO Representative today about how UNOPS can support these efforts. They mentioned two areas: 1) procurement of PPE, ventilators, testing kits; and 2) rehabilitation of the infectious disease clinic. As the UN mandated agency for procurement and infrastructure, UNOPS is able to help with both of these needs. In fact, we have built, rehabilitated, and equipped many hospitals, clinic, and laboratories around the world.

With regard to the infectious disease clinic, UNOPS would be ready to deploy a programme manager (in copy) and engineer to support the Ministry with an initial assessment of the rehabilitation/equipping needs and estimates together with the Ministry, if you would be interested. That way, you will have a fact-based position to take this initiative forward internally and with development partners.

Kindly let me know if this offer is of interest. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Mikkel

Mikkel Broholt | UNOPS Representative | Georgia, ECR | Tel: +41 79 137 3715 | Skype: mikkel.broholt | www.unops.org | UNOPS is ISO 9001 certified

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Dear Deputy Minister, dear Tamar Gabunia,

I hope this message finds you well during this unprecedented and challenging time. 

At UNOPS we are closely monitoring the impact the COVID-19 pandemic is having on the implementation capacities of our partners, and how it ultimately is affecting the people in need we are serving.

As we are all forced to re-prioritise our plans and interventions, I wanted to reach out to you to reassure you of UNOPS readiness to support you in this emergency. To this end UNOPS has activated Emergency Procurement Procedures (EPP) to enable a faster response to requirements related to the COVID-19 situation.

In particular, I would like to follow up on the requirements you mentioned during the call with the UN, development partners and the Government of Georgia last week. UNOPS would be ready to support with procurement of clinical items and commodities such as PPE, testing kits, ventilators, etc. many of these items are already available through existing LTAs. Moreover, we could help with rehabilitation of health infrastructure such as the infectious disease clinic and relevant additional equipment needs of hospitals/clinics, something we are engaged in globally.

Finally, thanks to our operational mandate, we are generally well placed to supplement our partners implementation capacities in addressing the COVID-19 health crisis. I am enclosing our COVID-10 Capacity Statement to give you an overview of the areas in which we could be of help with: 

• Our global e-Commerce solution UN Web Buy Plus, which among many products include ambulances, mobile clinics, medical incinerators, prefab buildings and biosafety labs.
• Rapid recruitment and deployment of personnel (recruitment and deployment of personnel / contract administration / remuneration / logistics).
• Assessing and rehabilitating medical facilities (rehabilitation of medical and health facilities / scaling up response efforts / mobilizing advisors, architects, engineers, project managers).
• Water sanitation and hygiene (designing and installing WASH facilities / treatment centres / water resource management).
• Longer term resilience and preparedness (programme management / healthcare infrastructure / medical procurement systems / humanitarian assistance centres)

I reiterate our readiness to support the Government’s efforts, in collaboration with other development partners and in coordination with the Resident Coordinator and WHO. Please rest assured of our highest consideration.

With best wishes,

Mikkel

Mikkel Broholt | UNOPS Representative | Georgia, ECR | Tel: +41 79 137 3715 | Skype: mikkel.broholt | www.unops.org | UNOPS is ISO 9001 certified

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